


with a little help from my friends

by bubblewrapstargirl



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Absolutely No Sexual Assault Ever Happened, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Everyone Is Gay, Luke Holliday is a Gift, Luke Holliday: PFLAG ally, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: 5 times Luke Holliday was a supportive ally.*“Is there something in the water or what? Is this team fully gay now or am I hallucinating?” He was shaking his head, but his smile was pretty proud.
Relationships: Charlie St. George/Alex Standall, Charlie St. George/Original Male Character(s), Chloe Rice/Bryce Walker, Hannah Baker/Zach Dempsey, Jeff Atkins & Scott Reed, Jeff Atkins/Clay Jensen, Jessica Davis/Justin Foley, Justin Foley/Clay Jensen, Montgomery de la Cruz & Charlie St. George, Montgomery de la Cruz/Winston Williams, Zach Dempsey/Alex Standall
Comments: 15
Kudos: 184





	with a little help from my friends

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a result of 2 things;  
> 1) Luke Holliday being an adorable Chalex cheerleader in S4, which felt way more believable than #woke Diego, probably because Luke's been a background character since S1  
> 2) Jess' comment to Clay at prom, encouraging him to be in an all-male poly triad, which had me feeling Some Kinda Way.

1.

“I still can’t believe Atkins is a homo,” said Monty with a shake of his head.

Instead of the usual and expected disgust, Luke saw there was merely confusion on his face.

“Dude,” said Diego, “That’s not a term you can like, say. Besides, we don’t know what labels Atkins is cool with, maybe Jeff’s bi, he’s had girlfriends before. Or maybe he’s one of those people who don’t ‘see’ gender or whatever.”

“Who doesn’t see gender?” Monty scrunched up his face in confusion, and Luke nodded in sympathy, because honestly, what the hell was that?

But Luke quickly moved past it, in order to put his two cents in.

“Yeah, man, Diego’s right. Jeff seems super happy with Jensen, so it’s all good, right? Being homophobic isn’t cool, dude.”

Monty shot him a confused look, which Luke understood. He didn’t really speak out for anyone, other than his boys on the team. He’d never once stepped in when Tyler Down or Clay Jensen was being taunted, for various reasons yeah, but a lot of it was tied up in speculation about their sexualities. It seemed like the rumours about Clay, at least, were true, which made Luke feel pretty shitty about it in hindsight.

But Jeff was a member of the team, and one of his boys, so maybe that’s why it was easier to speak up now. Or maybe just because Diego had started it, so Luke didn’t have to.

Still, he shrugged his shoulders at Monty’s continued look of disbelief.

“Love is love, right?” Luke said, “I mean, I don’t get the appeal, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I don’t understand algebra either, but people keep telling me it’s important for like, builders and engineers and shit, and those are pretty important jobs. So, just cause you don’t get it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have, like, value.”

Luke thought his words might have backfired, when he realised that both Monty and Diego, plus a couple of other guys like Justin and Tanner and Bryce (who had been having their own conversation nearby), were suddenly looking at him. He felt himself flush, and wondered if he’d sounded stupid.

“Bro,” said Justin with an impressed look, “That was deep.”

“Yeah?” said Luke, “Thanks man.”

2.

When the Oakmont quarterback slammed into Zach and called them all ‘fags’ Luke didn’t even think about it. He just launched himself at the other guy, and suddenly the rival team of sore losers weren’t heading back to their bus in defeat; they were engaged in a full-scale brawl with the Liberty Tigers. It was pandemonium; fists and elbows flailing, knees meeting soft, squishy parts and a general cacophony of profanity and unintelligible yells.

By the time it was all over, they were nursing bruises with ice packs in the gym in disgrace as they waited for their parents (no one was allowed to leave by themselves as part of the punishment). Zach was sat near Luke, and looked over at him in confusion.

“Dude, why did you pop off? It’s like you just went from 0 to 60 over nothing.”

Luke frowned, “It wasn’t nothing, he called you a slur, man.”

Zach still looked none the wiser as to why Luke had felt the need to defend him.

“I think it’s only considered a slur if you’re gay or whatever,” he replied.

Luke leaned forward, after looking around to make sure that no one else was listening in. Most of the other guys were gone, including the most volatile ones aka Monty and Bryce. So he felt confident in whispering;

“Come on, Zachy. I know you and Hannah are going steady, but I’ve seen you ogling Alex Standall a whole bunch of times.”

Zach blushed horribly, but didn’t deny it, cringing instead; “That obvious, huh?”

“Sorry bro,” said Luke sympathetically, “If you wanted to keep it a secret, maybe you shouldn’t keep eye-fucking him during study hall.”

Zach squawked in protest, puffed up like an offended bird, and Luke only laughed.

Luke felt pretty proud of himself a couple of weeks later that he’d called it, when Zach announced he was dating Alex, apropos of nothing. Jeff jokingly welcomed Zach to the team, and the others made supportive noises. Luke noticed Monty looking confused as hell in the background and sighed heavily knowing a fallout of some kind, probably a dust up, was imminent.

3.

“Stay the fuck away from my boyfriend!”

Luke rounded the corridor just in time to watch Zach slam Charlie St. George, perhaps the quietest, most docile teammate they had, into the lockers, while Alex looked on in horror.

“Hey man, ease off!” Monty immediately yelled, charging away from Luke’s side, always eager to get into the scrap.

He dropped his backpack to the ground in order to shove Zach away from Charlie, keeping one arm outstretched to stop Zach from getting closer.

“This is none of your business,” Zach snapped, “This little shitstain tried to make a move on Alex.”

Monty dismissed this with a roll of his shoulders, setting his jaw as he squared up to Zach, something which surprised Luke and probably everyone else there. It seemed like it would be a cold day in hell when Monty defended a guy who was into other dudes. But maybe it was because he and Charlie had been firm friends since Charlie transferred, and this news about his sexuality was as yet unconfirmed. By contrast, Zach and Monty tended to have friction anyway, and Monty still wasn’t on board the acceptance and tolerance train.

Teachers broke it up before things could escalate, which Luke was grateful for, because they really didn’t need this kind of tension between the team now the season was ramping up. He handed Monty back his bag, having helpfully scooped it up during the ruckus.

Luke clasped Charlie around the neck with a companionable squeeze. Since he was almost a clear 2-heads above Charlie, this inadvertently became almost a chokehold, but thankfully it wasn’t a tight one. Monty stalked ahead of them, allowing Luke and Charlie to amble along after at a less tense march.

“Bro, are you actually gay? Or bi, at least?” Luke asked conversationally, to which Charlie tensed up, his face turning pale, wide-eyed like a startled rabbit.

“Cause that would be great,” Luke continued blithely, “I’m asking for a friend. Someone I want you to meet, cause you’re a solid dude and you’d be perfect together. And Alex is off-limits dude.”

There was a long moment of silence, where Charlie suspiciously tried to work out if there was any other way that suggestive statement could be interpreted. Eventually it seemed he had to concede that no, there really wasn’t.

“Are you trying to set me up on a date? With a guy?” said Charlie, incredulously.

“Well, duh,” said Luke, rolling his eyes like it should be obvious. “But only if you promise to be your normal, chill self. You don’t treat your dates mean to keep ‘em keen, or any of that shit, right?”

“Uh, no.” Charlie confirmed.

“Great!” Luke chirped happily, “So, his name’s Ryan, and he’s in your year, I’ll give you his number…”

Luke casually took out his phone to do just that, while Charlie remained stock still, standing uselessly with his mouth open. Luke knew the jocks at Liberty had taken a swift u-turn into being #woke after their star baseball player didn’t so much as come out, as turn up to school with a boyfriend one day, but matchmaking for LGBT students might seem like a step too far, even for the newly #woke.

“Dude, get out your phone,” Luke had to prompt Charlie, poking him in the side.

“Right,” he said dumbly, fumbling to unlock it and type in the numbers Luke rattled off.

It was only when he was saving the new contact as ‘Ryan- blind date’ that he apparently realised the connection.

“Wait,” said Charlie, startled, “Are we talking about your brother Ryan?”

Luke grinned, offering him a sheepish shrug, “Yeah. He’s hot right? I mean, he looks like me, so he has to be, really. That’s like, the law of genetics.”

Luke offered him a charming smile as he waved a hand under his prominent jaw, and pressed a dramatic kiss to one of his ‘guns’.

“I just hope he’s more modest,” Charlie said dryly.

“Goddamn, will you guys hurry up? I’m starving over here,” said Monty crossly, “Quit spreading the fairy dust already, and let’s go.”

“Man, you’re so uptight,” Luke said, “No one cares who people make out with anymore. Aren’t you exhausted, being pissed off all the time?”

Monty merely glared at him.

4.

Zach and Hannah weren’t the only long-term couple that had shockingly broken up; Justin and Jess had too, though in a less spectacular fashion. Hannah spat fire at Zach but mostly at Alex, when she saw them, and it had a weird knock-on effect in the baseball team. Because Zach had mostly hung around with Justin and Monty and Bryce, but Hannah was good friends with Clay, who was dating Jeff, who was best friends with Scott, so it had the nice bonus of keeping them all together.

When they split, Hannah still tended to get invited to parties and such by Clay, only now Zach stayed away from her, so they had split firmly into two camps, and Luke had accidentally gravitated to hanging more with Zach, so now he saw much less of Jeff and Scott, which was a bummer. Charlie had gravitated to the other group, because Zach was still pissed at him, and Monty awkwardly hovered between the two, since he and Charlie had gotten close, but Bryce was still his main dude.

Bryce was spending a lot of his time ribbing Justin for letting a catch like Jess go, while she was trying valiantly to make him jealous with Diego. Whereas Bryce was smugly, freshly smitten with his new girlfriend Chloe. It made parties weird and kind of tedious, so Luke plopped himself on the outside seating beside Charlie and his little brother, who were getting cosy and cute as heck, just like Luke knew they would be.

When his brother had come out, he’d had no choice, since their mom had walked in on him making out with one of his friends. Apparently, they weren’t a thing; Josh was just feeling guys out, but so far he’d decided it was firmly just girls. Leaving Ryan disappointed, but giving Luke room to introduce him to Charlie, which seemed to be going well.

“Ugh, I can’t stand your smug face,” said Ryan, shoving Luke’s cheek away so he was forced to turn his head.

“Admit I’m the greatest brother ever,” said Luke with a chuckle.

“I can’t believe I was ever nervous to come out to you,” said Ryan waspishly, refusing to thank him for the intro.

Luke agreed with his words; he’d been very confused when his parents sat him down and said they were concerned about homophobia at his school, and how it might be influencing his views. This was before Jeff and Clay got together, so he sort of understood that they might be worried. Luke assured them he wasn’t that kind of asshole, and it was a couple of days later when his brother unceremoniously announced he was into dudes. It really didn’t change anything, except the gender of the potential crushes his younger brother might have that Luke could tease him about.

As the party continued, Monty gravitated toward Charlie to avoid Bryce and Chloe being sickeningly sweet, Ryan disappeared somewhere and Luke found himself talking to Alex while Zach was kicking Scott’s ass at beer pong.

“So, I get that you’re kind of a homewrecker now,” Luke said lowly to Alex, who gaped at him, offended, “But Charlie’s with my brother now, so if you try anything… or he tries anything. I’ll kick both your asses. Mmmkay?”

“Right…” said Alex with a frown.

From the corner of his eye, Luke saw Monty raise a hand in acknowledgement of some guy he didn’t recognise.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“He goes to Hillcrest,” said Monty, “He’s doing their yearbook.”

“So?”

But Monty wasn’t listening to him, already disentangling himself from the squash of dudes on the outside sofas. Luke caught his eye and gave Monty a searching look, to which he earned a somewhat bashful grin in response.

“No one cares, right?” he said, before turning to look at the newcomer again, a skinny, fay kid with dark curls. He nodded decisively, as though convincing himself of something. “I’m going to make out with that guy.”

“What?!” spluttered Luke, laughing, but Monty was already gone, stomping away with his trademark stalk.

“Is he serious?” asked Alex, bewildered.

They both had their answer, when Monty barely exchanged words with the new guy, before they were kissing heavily.

Bryce finally became unstuck from Chloe at the sound of Luke’s enthusiastic wolf whistle.

“What the fuck?” he said, while Luke cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled;

“Get it, Monty!”

Monty didn’t break the kiss in order to flip him off, while Bryce wandered closer, still staring.

“Is there something in the water or what? Is this team fully gay now or am I hallucinating?” He was shaking his head, but his smile was pretty proud.

Luke just shrugged.

5.

Apparently, Luke was entirely wrong to worry about Charlie and Alex, since he should have been worried about Clay Jensen breaking Jeff’s heart instead.

On a late night drive with Bryce, Monty and Diego, where they were speeding and shooting the breeze, hollering at the rush of night air as it screamed past, they ended up in the hills outside the city, a popular make out spot.

“Dude, isn’t that Jensen’s car?”

“Yeah,” said Bryce with a devilish grin, “Wanna bet he’s fucking Jeff in the backseat?”

They all laughed, and if they hadn’t been drinking, they would probably have never thought it would be funny to interrupt them, but they had, so they stumbled out of Bryce’s jeep and snuck up on the quiet, parked Prius. They popped up simultaneously, shouting and laughing, until they all cut off abruptly, when they recognised the occupants.

Yeah, it was Clay’s car, but it absolutely wasn’t Jeff whose lap he was writhing in, heavy into a make out session.

“Holy shit,” said Bryce, yanking open one of the back doors.

“Dude, what the fuck!” Justin snapped, fumbling to zip up his jeans.

“Get out of the car, asshole!” said Diego, and they both did, looking guilty as fuck.

Luke gaped at them in disbelief.

“Man, you were right Bryce,” he said, “This team is suddenly super gay.”

He was apparently the only one who thought it was kind of funny. Everyone else was too hung up on what this was going to do to their star player, which made Luke sober up quickly. Jeff was a great guy. He didn’t deserve to get fucked over by Clay and Justy, of all people.

“This is why you broke up with Jess?” Bryce was demanding, when Luke tuned into the conversation again, “So you could get busy with Jeff’s boyfriend?”

“It’s not like that,” Justin protested.

“Really?” said Bryce sarcastically, “Cause it sure as hell looks like it, Justy. Unless you and Jeff are through?”

Clay shook his head.

“I’m not cheating on Jeff,” he said, “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“What else could it be?” said Luke, utterly confused as to why they were denying it, when they were literally caught red-handed.

“Jeff knows about this,” said Justin, “He’s cool with it.”

“It’s complicated,” said Clay, at practically the same time.

“Bullshit,” snapped Bryce, still fuming.

“Why don’t you call him and ask?” Justin demanded, folding his arms, clearly ready to defend their actions.

Bryce didn’t call their bluff, but the disgust on his face didn’t leave when he shook his head and stalked away. He was silently fuming as they piled into the car, and the tension never left his shoulders as he drove them home.

Come Monday morning, Bryce was still on the warpath, narrowing his eyes dangerously at the sight of Jeff pressing Clay against the lockers, with a series of kisses. He marched up to the oblivious couple, and Luke quickly followed, despite the sinking stone in his stomach.

“You guys have a good weekend?” Bryce said loudly, forcing them to part in surprise.

Jeff shrugged; “Actually I was grounded, so I didn’t do much.”

“Clay managed to though, right?”

Jeff looked confused, but before Bryce could come out with it right there, Justin appeared.

“Hey babe,” said Justin, all smiles at Clay, who blushed and wriggled out of Jeff’s hold, accepting a quick kiss.

“What’s up guys?” Justin continued, slinging a casual arm about Clay’s shoulders.

“Oh, right,” Jeff nodded, “They said there was some confusion.”

They were all saved from further awkwardness by the bell; Justin, Clay and Jeff sloping off before Bryce could get another word in. Not that he seemed to be capable of making any at that moment.

“I think that is what they call an open relationship,” said Diego, but he didn’t sound entirely sure.

“Man, what the hell is happening at this school?” said Monty with a sigh, before pulling out his phone at the notification chime. Whatever he saw there gave him a goofy grin, so Luke figured he wasn’t seriously looking for an answer.

“If they're happy, it's all good,” Luke said easily, though he wasn't sure anyone was listening.

Luke was okay with that; all his boys seemed pretty happy, so he wasn’t about to examine things too closely and try to poke holes. Sometimes, you just had to appreciate how great life could be, without looking for complications. And life right then was pretty sweet.


End file.
